


cast my shadow from a bellow's flame

by bullroars



Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Gen, Haunting, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Supernatural Elements, don't fuck with shit you find in coal mines 101
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-23 00:57:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bullroars/pseuds/bullroars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is a ghost story.  (or, there are universes where raylan givens crawled out of that mine nineteen and alive and well.  this is not one of those universes.)  </p><p>(or, tim's life takes a turn for the worse re: the supernatural.  no one is especially surprised.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> I should probably not have written this or be posting this or have anything to do with this at all tbh but if I don't post it now, while I still don't know if Raylan is alive or not (the finale airs in 10 minutes what what), I am gonna lose my nerve aND 
> 
> I really, really don't want Raylan to die, god, please. (Which makes this fic ironic, but w/e) 
> 
> Many thanks to Aubrey for the beta. Timeline wise, this takes place right around the beginning of S1. This fic is finished! I will post the other two parts over the next few days depending on how hammered Im gonna have to get to deal with this finale. 
> 
> Title is from the song "I Will Never Die" by Delta Rae. Call it a good luck charm.

cast my shadow from a bellow's flame

 

No one in Harlan wants to talk to Tim about ghosts. To be fair, Tim doesn’t want to talk about ghosts either, but Boyd Crowder is in prison spitting warnings of supernatural fire and brimstone and February’s a slow month for the Marshals, so.

Here Tim is, slumming it in the holler, asking people what the fuck Boyd Crowder’s going on about.

“No, seriously,” Tim says, foot jammed in some skinny guy’s door, braced against the doorframe. “I just wanna know. What’s up with Crowder? Is he bullshittin’ me, or does he really believe he can talk to ghosts?”

“Just the one,” the skinny guy says, eyes darting around, and slams the door in Tim’s face.

Grumbling, he goes on to the next door. He’s pretty sure Art’s just keeping Tim out of the house, so to speak. They haven’t had a real case since early January—even Crowder’s initial arrest was just routine, just dotting _i_ s and crossing _t_ s.

Technically, Boyd Crowder, suspected bank robber and small-time, self-professed medium, was arrested for aiding and abetting a fugitive. Normal stuff.

Tim is out here because said fugitive turned up dead. Art and Rachel think Crowder killed the guy. Tim’s not too sure. He had one ten minute conversation with Crowder, during which Crowder told Tim, matter of fact, that death was sitting on his shoulder, the dead fugitive was killed by angry ghosts, and asked if Tim could very kindly bring him a lump of Harlan coal, as Crowder wasn’t in Harlan anymore and needed a way to contact the spirits.

Tim thought Crowder was batshit insane, and largely harmless, and told Art so. But Tim is technically the new guy, so Tim gets to go knocking on doors, asking if anyone knows where Boyd Crowder might bed down, so to speak, and also if anyone’s seen anything that goes bump in the night.

He looks blearily down at his list of Crowder’s acquaintances, provided by a jittery local deputy, and sighs. Three more names, then he’s calling it quits.

The next name is Ava Crowder. Tim frowns. A sister? Mom, aunt, wife? Some strange combination of the above?

She’s more like to turn something up than anyone Tim’s talked to so far, so he drives to her address and climbs onto her porch, and a pretty woman opens the door before he can even knock. She’s got a shotgun at her side.

“The hell are you?”

“Tim Gutterson, US Marshal,” he says, warily. He flashes his badge. “Ma’am, if you could put the shotgun down, I’d sure appreciate it.”

“Oh,” she says, and leans the shotgun against the stairs. “You here about Bowman?”

She’s too young to be Boyd’s mother. “Who?”

Ava Crowder frowns. “My husband?”

“Oh,” Tim says. “No. I’m here to talk about Boyd Crowder.”

Ava sucks at her teeth, nods, and says, “Guess you should come in, then.”

Tim follows her inside. “What’s your relationship to Boyd Crowder?”

“Sister-in-law,” Ava says. Pauses. “Former, I guess. Can I get you somethin’ to drink? Water, sweet tea?”

Tim takes some tea and lets Ava seat him in the kitchen. It’s a nice kitchen, homey; the paint is chipped and the wallpaper is peeling, but there are flowers and pictures on the counter and the windowsill, a flowery dress lying out in a patch of sun to dry and a white hat, probably the husband’s, hanging off one of the chairs.

“I heard he got arrested,” Ava says, offhand.

Tim nods. “Last week. Harboring a fugitive, obstruction of justice. I’m just doin’ some follow-up.”

Crowder’s sister-in-law buys it, or appears to. “I’m not sure I can be much help, Marshal. Boyd and I ain’t… ain’t been on good terms, lately.”

“Why’s that?”

“I shot his brother,” Ava says, flatly and without fear or pride. “Right there in that dining room, ‘bout a month ago.”

Tim can’t even say that he’s surprised. “Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry?”

“Wasn’t a great loss.” He’s pretty sure Ava’s laughing at him. “Bowman had it comin’. Hell, not even Boyd was that mad. He and Bowman never were too fond of each other. They were brothers, though, and that means somethin’.”

Tim’s sure it does. He says, carefully, “Mrs. Crowder, were you ever afraid of Boyd?”

Ava is quiet for a long moment. She says, “Near everybody was, now and again. Boyd was a strange one. Unsettlin’, like. But he never raised a hand to me, and even now I don’t think he’d do me harm.”

It’s an interesting non-answer, and it catches Tim’s attention. Everyone else has been outright afraid. Angry and surly and hiding behind redneck swagger, but scared. Tim just assumed it was because people here are a bunch of superstitious shitbags. Crowder goes on and on about ghosts and demons—everyone says so. Tim thought people were scared of Boyd putting a curse on them, or something.

But Ava Crowder doesn’t seem afraid. Or, doesn’t seem inclined to give into her fear.

“We’re lookin’ for wherever Boyd might’ve been living,” Tim says, deciding to push his luck. “A hidey-hole, some place he might keep some things we’ve got an interest in. Do you know of some place like that?”

For a strange second, Ava’s eyes slide off Tim’s face and fix on the wall behind him. She blinks.

Tim says, “Mrs. Crowder?”

“What do you know about Boyd Crowder, Marshal?”

Tim hesitates. Then he remembers that he’s spent five fucking hours wandering around Harlan and he’s got nothing to show for it but a crick in his neck and a bunch of vague superstitions, so he relents.

"Boyd Crowder, thirty-nine,” he recites. He didn’t bring the file with him but he’s gone over it a few times at the office. “Born in Harlan, Kentucky, current resident of the very same. Dug coal for Black Pike Mining until he was twenty. Served two tours in Desert Storm in 1992 and ’94. Arrested for tax evasion in ’98, served five years in prison, then disappeared off the grid upon his release in 2003. Last week he was arrested for aiding and abetting a federal fugitive. Oh,” Tim adds, as an afterthought, “and he also thinks he can talk to ghosts.”

“Just the one,” says Ava absently. “So you don’t know too much, huh?”

“Care to enlighten me?” Tim’s politely disinterested, watching more than listening. Ava doesn’t seem to care.

“I don’t know shit about Boyd’s bombings,” Ava warns. “Or what he’s been up to the last few weeks. Like I said, Boyd ain’t been around lately.”

“Can you tell me where he's been living?”

Ava chews her lip and looks away, her eyes fixing themselves on the windowsill. “Boyd caught Bowman hittin’ me, once. Right after he got out of jail. It was over somethin’—somethin’ stupid. I didn’t make dinner the way Bowman liked, so he hit me, and you know what Boyd did?”

She doesn’t look sad, Tim thinks. Or afraid. He shakes his head.

“Boyd stuck a gun in Bowman’s face, said, ‘Now, Bowman, I have it on good authority that you’ve been warned about this kind of behavior before.’ And Bowman said, ‘Fuck you, man, you think you can come into my house, work some hoodoo magic, tell me how to live my life?’ And Boyd said, ‘This is your last warning. If I hear of you goin’ after Miss Ava again, I’ll kill you. Or he will.’” Ava smiles. “Boyd didn’t count on me shootin’ Bowman. Neither did Bowman.”

Tim waits.

“I don’t owe much to anyone,” Ava declares, chin tilted back. She’s not looking at Tim but rather the windowsill, mouth set. “But I do owe Boyd somethin’, I guess. Tell me, has he been askin’ after anything from Harlan?”

“Coal.” And that’s still absurd, Tim thinks, but doesn’t say it.

Ava nods. “If I tell you where Boyd was livin’, or where I last heard he was, will you bring him some? It’d make him a damn sight more cooperative too, I bet. He’d tell you whatever you wanted.”

“Sure,” says Tim, easily. “I’ll bring him some coal. We just wanna clear some things up with him.”

“Harlan coal,” Ava insists. Her face is hard and fierce. “It’s gotta be Harlan coal.”

“Harlan coal,” he agrees.

Ava Crowder tilts her head, seems to come to some decision, her eyes still fixed on the windowsill. “Alright,” she says. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

\---

The church where Boyd Crowder has made his home is empty when Tim gets there. He sticks his head in curiously—doesn’t need a warrant, as a church is not technically a place of residence—sneezes at the dust, and wanders around the property for a few minutes.

He doesn’t see much that indicates that anyone is living here, let alone that a fugitive was squirrelled away. Inside, the church is stripped almost bare; there are a few tattered Bibles scattered around, one ancient pew and pulpit, and a line of crosses, all different colors and sizes, propped against the far wall.

Weird.

No guns, though, no bombs or the rocket launcher Crowder is supposed to be so fond of, so Tim closes the door and pokes around outside.

The yard is in a state of wildness, broken pews set out to rot among the crabgrass, shattered bottles and shotgun shells flashing in the sun.

Tim trips over at least three different chunks of coal, good, softball-sized lumps that have him down on one knee and cursing.

“Does it just grow right out of the ground here?” he grumbles, scrubbing at his hand. A few beads of blood come up, skin scraped raw, and Tim wipes his palm on the grass. His whole hand comes up gray and grainy.

There’s a tiny, dilapidated mobile home just down the hill from the church. Not wanting to waste the trip, Tim picks his way towards it, careful of anything else that might be in the way.

He wonders what it is with Crowder and coal.

“US Marshals,” Tim calls, knocking on the door.

“You can come in,” someone called.

Tim startles. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to be here. Crowder’s in jail, and as far as Tim knows, he lived alone. The fugitive he was hiding is dead.

Warily, half-expecting to get shot at, Tim inches his way inside.

An older woman, her face worn and creased like a farmer’s, stuck her head around the corner.

“A US Marshal,” she says, and laughs. “Huh. My nephew wanted to be a Marshal. Used to say he’d catch Billy the Kid and bring Jesse James to justice.”

“We got them some years ago, ma’am,” Tim says, deadpan, and offers his good hand. “Deputy Marshal Tim Gutterson. Do you live here?”

“Helen Givens,” says the woman, taking his hand. “And no. I’m looking after it for a family friend.”

“Boyd Crowder?” Tim guesses.

Helen Givens, to her credit, doesn’t flinch. “The same.”

“I was told he lived in the church?”

“He lives where he pleases,” Helen says, “though that old church’ll give him the black lung sure as the mines will.”

“Mr. Crowder work in the mines?” Tim looks around, curious. After everything he’d heard about Crowder, he’d expected a crazy man’s den. Writing on the walls, guns on every available surface, maybe a neo-Nazi flag or two. Some weird supernatural shit, though the crosses in the church are a good start on that count.

The little house, while rundown, is clean, neat, and even weirdly homey. The dishes all match and there’s some well-loved books on the shelf. A black jacket is slung over one chair and hat hangs off a hook next to the door. There are no guns in sight.

“No.” Helen, like Ava, doesn’t seem interested in looking at Tim. “No, Boyd left the coal company a long time ago now.”

“Did you know Jared Murphy?” At Helen’s look, Tim explains, “Mr. Murphy is a fugitive from justice, and an old friend of Boyd Crowder’s. We’ve got reliable information that Crowder was hiding Murphy. I was wondering if you’d seen him? Or if you know where he might go, if he were to find himself suddenly without a friend?”

He didn’t bother mentioning that Jared Murphy is dead.

Helen huffs a laugh. “I ain’t seen Boyd around here in a good few weeks, even before he got arrested. That’s not unusual—he comes and he goes.”

“Where does he go?”

Helen shrugs. She’s Ava Crowder in thirty years, Tim thinks. Crow’s feet and evasions, a stubborn mouth, misplaced loyalty. “Hunting, sometimes. Looking for work. Down to the wildcat mines.”

“I thought Mr. Crowder quit digging coal?”

“He did,” says Helen.

Tim turns that over in his head. “Wildcat mines,” he says. “Those are the ones that have been dug already, right?”

The older woman nods. Her eyes flicker over Tim’s face and then over by the door. He follows her gaze; there’s nothing there.

“Can you tell me which one?”

Helen outright laughs. “Son,” she says, “there’s wildcat mines all through these hills and not a thing you wanna find in any of ‘em.”

“I need to find Jared Murphy.” Tim doesn’t get all this reluctance. All of Harlan County seems to be in on it, everyone talking circles around Tim or not talking at all, slamming their doors in his face. He feels like he’s in the desert again, surrounded by equal parts fear and stubbornness.

“Trust me, Marshal.” Helen says. “There’s nothin’ in those mines for you, even if you could find the right one. They’re Boyd’s places. Other people ain’t exactly welcome.”

“Why?” Tim says, dry as the sand. “Boyd gonna sic his ghosts on me if I walk into one, that it?”

Helen turns so sharply that she knocks a glass off the table; it falls and shatters across the floor. Helen makes no move to pick up the pieces. “Where’d you hear that?” she demands.

Nonplussed, Tim says, “There’s a note in his file. Boyd thinks he can talk to ghosts.”

Helen’s quiet for a long moment, finally, really looking at Tim, and says. “Just the one. I’m gonna have to ask you to leave, Marshal.”

Tim opens his mouth, but Helen’s already physically herding him towards the door. Broken glass crunches underfoot. His scraped hand throbs.

“Mrs. Givens,” he begins, half-out of the house.

“Boyd Crowder wasn’t hiding no fugitive,” Helen says flatly. “And even if he was, you and I both know Jared Murphy is dead over Salt Creek Bridge, and Boyd didn’t do it ‘cause he’s been in prison all week. Now don’t you come around here again, Deputy Marshal, unless you got a real good reason.”

“Did Ava Crowder call you?” Tim shouts. Helen slams the door in his face.

He stands on the stoop for several seconds, palm prickling and head whirling, then turns on his heel and goes back to the car.

He sits there for several seconds, thinking. Something’s not right about Boyd Crowder. He scares people. He causes a deep, visceral terror, even in people like Helen, in people like Ava.

They hide it well. Tim’s sure that Helen Givens and Ava Crowder would swear under oath that they weren’t scared of Boyd, but Tim knows fear. He’s seen this kind before.

I need to find me a wildcat mine, he thinks. He gets out of the car again, scours the overgrown, pockmarked field, and comes up with a lump of coal the size of his fist. His hand is still bleeding.

When he drives away Helen Givens is watching from the mobile home’s tiny stoop, hair blowing in the wind. Tim waves. He doesn’t see the shadow of a person behind the window, watching him leave, or here Helen say, quietly, "Think he's gonna be trouble?" 

\---

Harlan County does, as it turns out, have a library, and that library does have maps and company records.  The problem is, there are dozens, probably hundreds, of abandoned mines in and around Harlan, some of them recorded, some of them mapped, some of them a combination of the two, and some of them neither recorded nor mapped nor apparently known to fucking man at all.

It is starting to piss Tim off. 

He calls Art halfway through the day, frustrated.  "No good leads on Crowder," he says, irritably. 

Art huffs.  "Nobody talkin'?"

"Nobody sayin' anything worth while," Tim says, which is about the same thing.  "Got a tip about Crowder livin' in an abandoned mine or something, but there are dozens of 'em and no one knows which one."  None of the librarians have been helpful, anyway.  Tim had asked, politely even, and gotten two blank stares and one horrified gasp for his trouble.

"You consider askin' Crowder?"

"Crowder's been giving me the runaround since we hauled him in last week."

"Come on now," Art says, sounding amused.  "There must be something he wants.  Cigarettes, some hillbilly shit, a Bible, I don’t know.  He mention anything when you interviewed him last week?"

Tim sighs.  "Yeah," he says, "yeah, he did."

"Well, get to it, son."  Art hangs up on him. 

Tim sucks air in through his teeth, breathes.  He swipes the map of the hills.  "Hey," he calls, to one of the librarians who hadn't looked like she was gonna shit her pants when he asked her about Crowder's mine, "you know where I can go to get a nice big ol' lump of Harlan coal?"

\---

"Brought you something," Tim says, gesturing at the paper bag.  The fluorescent lighting inside Tramble's already starting to give him a headache. 

"Aw, darlin'," drawls Boyd, "you shouldn't have."  He settles down across from Tim easily, spreads his legs out and leans back in his chair.  His cuffs rattle.       

Tim raises an eyebrow.  "That mean you don't want it, Crowder? I brought it special all the way from Harlan."

Crowder stills.  "Now, Marshal, I'm startin' to think you're sweet on me."

Tim grins.  "Sure am.  Wanna see?"

"What’s it gonna cost me?"  There's a lazy look in Crowder's eyes that belies a certain hunger.  He knows what Tim had in the bag, and he wants it. 

"Now, Boyd, don't be like that.  Here I thought we were startin' to become friends.  Would a friend try and bribe you like that?"

Crowder spreads his hands as far as he's able, flashing a grin.  He's willing to play along.  "Of course we're friends, Marshal.  My most sincere apologies.  You learn to get real suspicious in here.  How's that song go?  _Ain't nothin' in this world for free._ "

"I'll tell you what."  Tim opens the bag and puts the lump of coal, no bigger than a pebble, on the table.  The correctional officers hadn't been real keen on letting Tim bring a rock into their prison, but the warden had allowed it, after Tim cut it down some.  "You tell me where I can find this mysterious wildcat mine of yours, I'll let you have that."

Crowder laughs  "You and I both know they're not like to let me keep that, Marshal." 

"Cleared it with the warden already.  He had me whittle that rock down 'til you couldn't even choke on it if you tried, but  he let it in.  It's yours."

Crowder leans forward, eyeing Tim.  He says, "Let me see that, and I'll consider your offer."

"Sure."  Tim nudges the lump across the table into Crowder's waiting hands.  He scoops it up and cradles it in his palms, carefully, like he's holding a small animal or something similarly precious. 

"Do you know what this country runs on, Marshal?"

"A truly astounding national deficit?" 

Boyd laughs again.  "Money, sure," he says.  "But money's hard to work with, these days.  It passes through too many hands, understand.  It's got no roots.  Back when we had the gold behind our money it had its power, but that's gone now, son.  No, this country runs on something else."

At a loss, Tim shrugs. 

Crowder grins.  He holds up one hand, raises three fingers, and says, "Water."  He drops a finger.  "Can't live without it.  So it was and so it will always be, as my mama would say.  Coal."  He drops another finger.  "Did you know about forty percent of this great nation's energy is derived from coal, Marshal?" 

"I did not."  Tim doesn't really know where this is going, but he's willing to go along so long as there's a payout at the end.  It's worth it to see Crowder at work, anyway.  This is what has all of Harlan close-mouthed and nervous.  Crowder speaks like a preacher and has eyes like a snake. 

"Forty percent," he says.  "And here in Kentucky it's higher, around ninety.  Coal forms the ground beneath us, Marshal.  It's in the air we breathe and in the water we drink.  It lights our homes and puts food in our mouths.  We worship it."

"Shit," says Tim dryly, "makes me wanna quit my job and go join the miner's union right now." 

"You joke, Marshal, but I assure you I'm quite serious," Crowder says, half-smiling.  "Coal is our bread and butter, son.  It controls the masses, so to speak.  And when you give a thing that much of your time and your energy and your sweat and your blood, when you breathe it and drink it and give your life to it, well.  You give it _power._ " 

"Water."  Tim ticks off his own fingers.  "Coal.  And..?"

Crowder's smile is sharp.  "Blood," he says, and bites down on his own thumb.  Bright blood beads up, hardly more than a few drops, and Crowder, before Tim can stop him, presses his bitten thumb down on the little lump of coal.

For an irrational second, Tim expects--something.  Fire and light, a clap of thunder, but all that happens is Crowder sighing and looking past Tim like he's not even there.

_I'm spending too much time in Harlan,_ Tim thinks, wry. 

"Mr. Crowder, has anyone ever told you that you've got a flair for the dramatic?" 

Crowder huffs a laugh, a little vacant.  "I may have been told once or twice." He isn't paying attention to Tim anymore at all. 

Annoyed, Tim pointedly turns around and scans at the room behind him.  There's nobody there.  Just brick and fluorescent and the grimy mirror, Tim's face reflected back at him. 

Behind him, Crowder hums.  "Sorry, Marshal," he says.  "Just catchin' up.  Now, about that deal...?"

There's no way he'd forgotten.  Tim isn't fooled by the spacey, oddball Southern preacher act, not in the least,  but he repeats, dutifully, "We'll let you keep that coal if you provide the location of the abandoned mine where you--allegedly--spend a fair bit of your time.  Or you could just confess to killing your neo-Nazi pal.  We'd sure appreciate that."

Crowder's eyes glitter. "Now, Marshal, if you've been askin' around Harlan, you might have heard about my, uh, _unusual_ reputation.  And I will own up to that.  But I am not, and have never been, a murderer."

"Somebody killed him."

"As these handcuffs do attest, he was a fugitive," says Crowder.  "And not a particularly likeable person, if I can say so myself."

"You're saying somebody else killed him."

"Marshal, I have been in custody all week.  I do not know when our friend the neo-Nazi passed on, but I saw him not three hours before I was arrested and he was hale and hearty."

"Tell me where that mine is," Tim says.  He taps his fingers along the table.  "Could go a long way in proving you didn't kill him."

Crowder's silent for a long minute.  He's looking at Tim again, thoughtfully.  He says, "Three months off my sentence and you've got yourself a deal, Marshal."

"I'll have to run that by the DA, but I'll put a word in for you." Tim won't--Crowder creeps him out, and is an asshole besides--but he's up for a transfer soon anyway.  Crowder will never know.

"Agreed," says Crowder.  "You got a map, Marshal?"

Tim pulls his out, smoothing it flat.  Crowder tucks the coal into his pocket, hand out for a pen.  His thumb is still bleeding. 

"Now," he says, taking Tim's pen, "you find this mine, you make sure to be careful, Marshal.  You hear of the Black Pike Collapse of '89?" 

"Can’t say I have," Tim drawls. 

Crowder smiles, tracing along a creek with the pen.  "I was nineteen years old," he says.  "Workin' a deep mine so my brother, Bowman, could stay in school and play football.  I was a powderman.  Know what that is?"

"You blew shit up." 

"I blew shit up," Crowder agrees.  "Now, Black Pike, they were and are one of the worst coal companies out there.  Ignorin' regulations, breakin' union lines, you name it, they did it.  We were diggin' under a little mountain, not big at all--we natives called it Bennett's Spur, on account of the Bennett clan--and Black Pike had multiple powdermen, you know, to have multiple tunnels bein' dug at once.  Not the safest practice, but we knew the risks and dug anyway.

"Now, in 1989, when I was nineteen years old, a friend of mine and I were pickin' our way through this mountain's underbelly, not a care in the world, not knowin' that another crew a few thousand feet down and over had accidentally blown a hole down into an underground river.  I do not know if Black Pike knew about it or not.  To this day they swear they didn't.  But they blew a gash in the mountain, and the whole thing started to come down around us."

"Was that when you stopped mining?" 

Crowder smiles.  "No," he says.  "No, I kept diggin'.  There was a lawsuit on account of the death of another boy, which closed the mine for a while, but in a month or two Black Pike opened it back up again and life went on."

"You're sending me to a collapsed mine?" 

"Half-collapsed," Crowder corrects, and circles a place on the map, big and bold.  "Wear a helmet, Marshal.  And you might wanna bring a water bottle full of saltwater."

Tim raises his eyebrows.  "What?" 

"Hold it in your mouth," says Crowder.  "Don't swallow it."

"Why not?"

Crowder laughs, and presses a hand over his pocket.  "There's ghosts in that mine, son.  Harlan ghosts.  And they don't take too kindly to trespassin'."

\---

In the end, Tim does take a water bottle full of saltwater.  He hopes it doesn't have to be from an ocean or something--he's not about to drive ten hours to the coast just to appease Boyd Crowder's superstitions. 

He told Art and Rachel where he was headed, promised not to do anything stupid, and headed back to Harlan. 

He listens to the Rolling Stones and thinks about the bottle of saltwater.  He can't tell if Crowder's bullshitting him or not.  Tim is inclined to think _not,_ by now--not that he believes there are ghosts, just that Crowder and everyone around Crowder think there are.  He can't think of any other reason for the theatrics, and the genuine fear he'd seen in the locals. 

He eventually has to get out of the car and hike in on foot, following Crowder's map.  According to the Harlan County Library, this particular mine closed some fifteen years back, deemed worthless by Black Pike.  When Tim finally finds it, it doesn't look like anything special.  Mold-spotted wood crossed over a dark hole in the hillside, the road and the trail growing over, the mountain gradually taking itself back. 

Next to the mineshaft, there's a plaque nailed to the rock.     

IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE, it reads, and lists a date, AUGUST 21, 1989, and then a list of names and a little dedication.  Crowder's mine collapse, Tim guesses, and sighs.  He really shouldn't be doing this.  He may have neglected to tell Art that he was going to be poking his nose around a _collapsed_ abandoned mine, but if he had, Art wouldn't have let him come, and Tim is really starting to get annoyed with Harlan and its superstitious, closed-mouthed hillbillies thinking they can just clam up and send Tim away. 

He takes a deep breath, shoves the water bottle in one pocket, flicks the safety off his gun, and steps into the shaft.

The mine is close and filthy.  Tim has to crouch, swinging his flashlight in front of him in lazy arcs.  Tim's been in some awful places.  The mine's air is stale in his mouth and the hair on the back of his neck stands up, but he's been in worse places, he thinks.  At least nothing's blowing up or trying to kill him. 

It doesn't look like anyone has been down here in a long, long time.  The air is damp and thick.  Black dust clings to his feet.  His footfalls echo.

Tim wanders deeper into the mine, taking shallow breaths.  _If Crowder's leading me on,_ he thinks, irritably. 

But after Tim's been creeping along for ten or fifteen minutes, he starts to see signs of life.  Glow tape glitters on the walls.  Some of the coal dust has been swept up, or trampled down, and the ceiling has been carefully carved smooth. 

Tim literally trips over a small, beaten-up gas generator and has to catch himself, swearing.  He gropes around for a minute and flips a switch.  The lights splutter on. 

"Okay," Tim says out loud, "now I know somebody's fuckin' with me."  Christmas lights are draped down the tunnel and illuminate a sort of carved-out hollow no bigger than a prison cell.  They're not even the normal white Christmas lights, which Tim could almost understand; they're red and green and orange and blue, and some of them flash on and off, giving the tunnel a surreal quality that has Tim wondering if he hit his head somewhere in the holler and is actually just tripping balls in a hospital.

The little room doesn't do anything to reestablish reality.  There's a mattress and a pile of blankets in one corner, a book, a hardhat, and a tin mug balance on a ledge.  A tangle of flannel shirts is stuffed in the other corner, a cowboy hat smudged with coal dust perched on top. 

"This is unreal."  Tim steps into the tiny hollow, wrinkling his nose at the stale smell.  On the mattress there's a stack of papers as thick as Tim's wrist and a battered box; a quick search turns up a container of Morton salt, a few clumps of dried plants tied with twine, and an ancient rosary. 

The book on the ledge is called _Ghosts of Harlan County._ There's a picture of a mine on the cover. 

Curiously, Tim picks it up and leafs through it. The chapters have titles like "The Holler Road" and "The Devil of Hunter's Point," "Deep Mine" and "Blood Feud."  There are notes written in cramped, dense handwriting along some of the margins.  He can't read them down here and he is not particularly inclined to try, but they might end up useful. 

Tim pockets it and goes for the stack of papers, intent on finding something in this weird shithole to make the trip worth his time, when somebody behind him says, "What are _you_ doing here?"

Tim has his gun out and aimed before he even really understands what's happening.  His ears ring and there's something wet against his neck--later he'll realize that he cracked his head on the top of the cave, but right now he doesn't feel any pain. 

"US Marshal," Tim spits, restraining violence.  "Show me your hands."

A filthy kid shoots his hands up, eyes wide.  "Woah, woah! Don't shoot, man, I ain't carryin'."

Tim squints, lowers his gun a fraction.  "Who are you?  What are you doing here?"

"I don't want any trouble," the kid says.  It's hard to tell how old he is under the layer coal dust.  He has dark hair and big hands and the look of a scrawny kid not quite done growing into his shoulders.  His eyes are wide and brown, or maybe dark gray.

Blood drips down Tim's collar.  He fumbles for his ID, closes his hand on it, flashes it for the kid.  "US Marshal," he repeats.  "Who are you?"

"Uh," the kid says, "Raylan?  Raylan Givens."

"Any relation to Helen Givens?"

"Yeah," the boy says, "she's my aunt."

"And what are you doing here?" 

"What are _you_ doin' here?"

Tim raises his eyebrows.  "I'm askin' the questions," he says, but the adrenaline is fading.  His head is starting to hurt. 

"You with the coal company?"  The kid sounds suspicious. 

"Black Pike?"

"Any of 'em?"

"No," Tim says, and holsters his gun again.  "No, I'm here on Marshal business." 

"The Boyd Crowder thing?"  the kid relaxes a fraction. 

"You know Boyd Crowder?"

"Everyone knows Boyd," the kid says, rolling his eyes.  "That's his room you're standin' in."

"See him often?"

The kid shrugs.  "Now'n again.  Not so much lately.  He likes his privacy, Mr. Boyd.  There's been a lot of people 'round here lately."

"Like you?"

The kid shrugs again.  He wearing a gray work uniform undone down to the waist, sleeves knotted neatly around his hips.  His wife beater is ragged and ashy gray.  He looks like he was dipped in coal dust.  A pouch of tools hangs off one hip. 

"What are you doing down here?"  Tim repeats.  He rubs the top of his head.  His hand comes away sticky.  "Don't lie, now."

The kid hesitates, then finally gives up and says, reluctantly, "Jus' tryin' to see if there's anything worth taking here."

Tim blinks. 

"Like, coal," the kid says.  "Black Pike left this mine in a real hurry, 'bout fifteen years back.  I figured there might'a been something left behind."

"There's a black market for coal?"

The kid laughs.  "You're in Harlan, son.  There's a black market for everything."

"And what you're doing is safe?  You bring a buddy or something?"

"Did you?"  the kid says pointedly, and grins.  "I know these mines better'n any man alive.  'cept Boyd, I guess."

Tim shakes his head.  "Fair enough.  Since you know the mines so well, can you tell me if Crowder's got any other hidey-holes like this one?" 

"Probably.  He's an odd bird."

"Know where they might be?"

The kid snorts.  "No," he says, "and if I did I wouldn't tell you.  The ghost wouldn't like you pokin' around uninvited like, badge or no."

"The ghost," Tim says, flatly. 

The kid nods, earnest.  Tim still can't tell what color his eyes are, and underneath all the dust, he looks gray. 

"Crowder's still in jail," Tim points out.  "Ain't much he can do about anything here from there."

"You'd think that," says the boy, "but rumor is Crowder's spilled so much blood in these mines he can make 'em shake, if he wants to."

Tim closes his eyes and counts backwards from ten.  "One," he says, "what does blood have to do with causin' earthquakes?  And two, you really believe that?"

"Blood's got power."  The kid grins.  "Ain't your mama ever tell you that?  They say Crowder's bound the ghost to him forever with all the blood he's given.  They say the ghost will do whatever he wants."

"And you really believe that?"

"No," the kid allows, grinning wider.  "Pepole here are forgettin' their folklore.  It's more like to be the other way around."

"What, Crowder doing the whatever the ghost wants?" Tim is done with this conversation, and this mine, and this county.  He edges past the kid back into the tunnel proper, ready to head back where he came. 

"Somethin' like that.  Course, Crowder's batshit, so.  Who knows, right?  I've never run into anything down here that fills me with mortal fear.  Well, I was in a collapse once, but other'n that." 

"Uh huh," Tim says.  He should turn and leave, but he doesn't want to turn his back on the boy. 

"If I were you, I'd brush up on your knowledge of the occult and supernatural," the kid continues.  He says _oh-cult_ instead of _ah-cult.  "_ Just in case Mr. Crowder gets out and takes offense to you sniffin' roung his affairs." 

Tim snorts.  "Crowder's not gettin' out.  He's in for a long stay, 'less someone else decides to cop to murdering a federal fugitive."

"Oh," says the kid.  "Well, I guess you got nothin' to worry about, then.  Have a good day, Marshal."  He turns to head deeper into the mine, reaching for Crowder's generator. 

"Wait," Tim says.  "What's your name again?"

"Raylan," the boy replies, and flicks the switch, plunging them into darkness.  His voice echoes strangely against Tim's ears.  His scalp prickles.  "My name's Raylan."


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait on this one, I got blindingly sidetracked by classes and Daredevil. 
> 
> Thank you all for your comments and kudos! I should get the last two parts posted by the end of the week, if I can find the time to sit down at a computer and go crazy.

"You've had a busy few days, huh," says Rachel, dropping a steaming cup of coffee down in front of Tim.  He groans gratefully and drinks half of it in two gulps, ignoring the heat. 

"Fucking hillbillies," he says. 

"That bad?"

Tim scrubs a hand down his face.  "I have heard more bullshit in the last three days than in three years in the US Armed Services."  At Rachel's laugh, he drains the rest of his coffee and says, irritably, "I'm serious.  You know that statistic that's says forty-two percent of Americans believe in ghosts?  Yeah, that all comes from Harlan county."

"You went down there to listen to ghost stories?" 

"No, but that's what I got anyway."

"What do you mean?"

Tim looks mournfully down into his empty cup.  "Every time I brought up Crowder, people got real spooked.  Shutting doors in my face, chasing me off, crossing themselves, whatever.  Turns out literally everyone down there believes Crowder's in cahoots with some kind of crazy mine ghost and if they talk, they'll get killed in a blood sacrifice, or something."

"Did you really just say _in cahoots?_ "

"Is that all you took from that sentence?  Really?"

Rachel shrugs and smiles beatifically.  "White people be crazy," she deadpans. 

Tim snorts. 

"Why do you care what a bunch of hicks believe?"  she says.  "You don't have a problem with Bible thumpers, do you?" 

"Bible thumpers usually don’t obstruct a federal investigation," Tim mutters.  He frowns.  Why _does_ he care so much?  He's barely been able to sleep the past few days, thinking about this mess.  Well, that and the headaches.  He's had one since cracking his head in the mine yesterday.  His ears won't stop ringing, either. 

"Fair," Rachel allows.

"Thing is," Tim says, "I think Crowder believes it to."

"What, that he's friends with a ghost?"

Tim nods.  "I thought he was just pulling me around at first.  Playin' up the crazy preacher act, you know?  He's done it before."

Rachel has also ready Crowder's file.  She nods and says, "What makes you think he's not acting?"

Tim can't explain it.  There was a commitment in Crowder's eyes he'd only ever seen before in the fanatical.  The guys who'd strap bombs to themselves and to children, walk into a crowded market, and let go.  Their belief was so strong they weren't afraid of dying bloody, and they were more than happy to take people with them.  "Just a feeling, I guess." 

"A paranormal feeling?"  Grinning, Rachel wiggles her fingers at him.  Tim rolls his eyes.  "You should start carrying sage if you're worried about ghosts.  That's what my mama always said."

"Oh, not you too," Tim groans.  "First it was Crowder, then that punk in the mine.  I don't need any help with the supernatural, okay?  Ghosts _aren't real._ "

"Hey, don't need to tell me twice," Rachel says.  "I stopped believing in that kind of thing when I was eight.  So, what?  You think Crowder thinks that he's some kind of medium?  Do mediums commit murder?"

"I think he might have," Tim confesses.  He'd doubted Art and Rachel initially.  But no other suspects have presented themselves and after that conversation in Tramble, well.  There's something wrong with Crowder.  Tim hadn't seen it the first time.  He'd only seen the screwball, the hillbilly, not the man with rattlesnake eyes and bloody teeth. 

"Oh, you're on board with us now?"  Rachel grins again, leaning back in her chair.  "Art'll be over the moon."

"Can't do you any good if I don't _find_ anything," Tim says, irritated. 

Rachel waves a hand.  "One problem at a time.  So.  Crowder's a murderer and a crazy one at that.  You find anything in that mine of his that could help prove it?" 

"The murderer part or the crazy part?"

"Either."

"Found this," Tim says, and tosses the book to her.  He'd picked through it absentmindedly last night when he couldn't sleep.  He'd read books like it before when he was a kid, cheesy local horror stories and things that went bump in the night.  Crowder had jotted down his thoughts in the margins. 

_Ghosts don't need to eat,_ he'd written.  _No such thing as a babadook.  Johnson's Holler isn't haunted, the chickens are just assholes.  Sage + belladona = ? Blood ties work both ways.  Always sanctify your freshly-collapsed mine with salt and holy water, 'less you want a shithead to take up residence._

Useless stuff. 

Rachel picks it up, interested.  "Oh, I used to love these when I was a kid," she says.  "My sister hated them.  She wouldn't be able to sleep for days, after.  You need this for the case?"

Tim shakes his head.  "There's nothing in it to tie Crowder to our dead fugitive," he says.  "I checked.  No maps or anything. Just a bunch of scribbles."

"Mind if I borrow it?  My nephew'd enjoy it, I think."

"Go nuts."  Tim leans back in his chair and closes his eyes.  Something must show on his face because Rachel says, "You don't look so good.  You pick something up in Harlan?"

"Nah," he says.  "Just a headache."

"Might as well go home, then," Rachel says, voice kind.  "You've had a busy couple of days.  Go home, sleep it off."

"I'm fine.  Just gonna close my eyes a minute," Tim mutters. 

"Suit yourself.  I'll let you know if anything turns up," she replies, and promptly buries her nose in the book.  Tim lets himself go in and out like the tide, purposefully not thinking about coal mines and criminals, Boyd Crowder's glittering eyes. 

\---

Tim wakes up in the dead of night and has his gun in hand before his eyes are even open.

Awareness pools between his shoulders and tightens his wrists.  He holds very still for a long moment, straining to see or hear whatever it was that startled him awake. His apartment is quiet. 

Tim's head still hurts.  He stands up almost silently, and prowls through his apartment, seeing by the orange streetlight outside. 

As far as he can tell, nothing is out of place.  His files are piled up on the counter like he left them, his shoes still lying in the middle of the living room, his one sad houseplant hanging undisturbed by the door. 

The hair on the back of his neck is still prickling, tension sliding down his spine.  He sticks his head out the front door warily.  Nobody's out on the street except for a shadow turning the corner down by the main road.  Tim can make out a broad-brimmed hat and the shape of a man, and then it's gone. 

He goes through his apartment again, bolts the door, and then drags himself back to bed. 

The headache, a shot of bourbon, and a few pills lull him back to sleep and it's not two hours later that his phone goes off and he gropes for it with his teeth rattling inside his skull. 

"Hullo," he growls. 

"Update on the Crowder case," Art says without preamble.  He sounds like Tim feels.  "You're gonna wanna come in for this one."

Tim, facedown in his pillow, groans.

"Rachel's bringing coffee," Art says, and hangs up. 

The sky is just beginning to turn gray when he gets his clothes on and half a bagel in his mouth.  He does a quick walk around his apartment block, finds nothing but an overturned trash bin occupied by a pissy raccoon, and chalks his nighttime adventure up to too much bourbon and the knock he took to the head down in the mines.

The drive to the courthouse takes fifteen minutes.  He listens to garbled radio for six of them, can't stand the way it cuts in and out, and drives the last eight in silence.  He has to keep shaking his head to clear away shadows. 

Art pulls into the parking lot right after him, sourfaced. 

"What's the big news?"  Tim asks. 

"You ain't gonna like it."

"Lay it on me," says Tim, dry, because he didn't get out of bed at four-thirty expecting good fucking news.

"Local boy from Harlan copped to the murder of our fugitive a few hours ago."

"Bullshit," Tim says.

Art scrubs a hand down his face and lets Tim into the courthouse.  "Harlan Sheriff's bringin' him up now.  Says the boy walked into his office, confessed to hidin' our man and then killin' him when he didn't pay."

"Bullshit," Tim says again.  The warmth of the building wakes him up a little; he hadn't realized how cold he was. 

"Don't shoot the messenger."

Rachel's waiting for them when the elevator doors clank open with McDonald's and a fruit bowl for Art.  Tim grabs his cup and presses a few crumpled ones into her hand.  It's not good coffee but it's hot and it helps him warm up some. 

"Art break the news?"  she asks. 

Tim nods. 

"There's more coffee in the break room.  The Harlan Sheriff called maybe ten minutes ago, said he's about," Rachel checks her watch, "thirty minutes out." 

"How long you been here?"

"Since I got the call," she says tiredly.  "You awake yet?"

Tim polishes off his coffee, fills it up again, and pops another pill in his mouth on the way back.  "Hit me."

"Local boy Hank Everett walked into the station at one forty-eight this morning.  He asked to see Sheriff Hunter Moseley and confessed."

"To killing our fugitive after helpin' him hide out for a few weeks?"

"Yep," says Rachel.  "He sounds pretty convincing, too."

"No way some kid did this," Tim says flatly.  Crowder did it, he's sure of it.  He knows it like he knows the grip of his gun. He doesn't know where or why he got this newfound certainty, but he believes it.  Maybe his brain put it together while he was dosed up and sleeping fitfully.  Whatever the cause, Tim is sure, down to his bones, that Boyd Crowder murdered their fugitive, and probably others besides.  And even if he didn't, there's no way in hell some kid murdered a man in cold blood and left his body to cool on the road.  

"Everett knew our man's name," she says.  "He knew where the body was, and how he was killed.  He gave Sheriff Hunter the location of the gun; some guys are looking for it now."

Tim shakes his head.  He replays the last few days.  "Nobody said anything about Hank Everett."

"Did youaskabout Hank Everett?"

Tim glares.  "No," he says, "but people are scared shitless of Crowder down there.  If a federal came knocking on your door and you could get into the good books of somebody you though was gonna hurt you, or at least stay out of his bad ones, what would _you_ do?"

"Fair," Rachel admits, grudgingly.  They're quiet for a few minutes.  It's near six in the morning now and the building's starting to wake up.

Rachel says, "You think Crowder could've put this Everett kid up to it?  Are people really that scared of him?"

Tim thinks about pale faces, worried mouths.  Helen Givens and her nephew, Ava Crowder.  "Some of them," he says.  "Some of them seem to be scared _for_ him.  His sister-in-law.  This old lady takin' care of his house.  I told you about that kid I met in the mines?  Didn't seem scared at all."

Rachel shrugs.  "Kid's here," she says. "We'll find out soon enough, I guess." 

Tim watches as a larger man in county brown escorts a pale, skinny kid through the bullpen in handcuffs.  "Shit," he says, sucking air through his teeth. "How old is this kid?"

"Seventeen," Rachel says. 

They make a show of doing something else, watching the sheriff usher the kid into the interview room.  The sheriff steps into Art's office.  A few minutes later Art whistles, calling Tim and Rachel over. 

"Deputy Brooks, Deputy Gutterson, this is Sheriff Hunter Moseley."

"Which one of you's been pokin' your nose around my county?"  He asks with a half-smile, shaking their hands. 

"That'd be me," Tim says.  "Sorry."

Hunter waves it off.  "Nah, it's good to rile 'em up every once and a while.  Reminds 'em there's a world on the other side of the county line."

"Rachel, you'll be going with Sheriff Hunter back down to Harlan," Art says.  "I want you to go through Everett's place, see if you can find anything."

"Just let me grab my jacket," she says, touches Tim's elbow, and is gone.

"Gutterson, with me."

"Yessir," Tim says. 

"Don't start," Art grumbles. Tim follows him into the conference room and flops down across from Hank Everett. 

The kid looks bad.  Pale and shaky, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.  There's black dust smeared on his hands and elbows.  A thick bandage is wrapped around his right wrist.  The wound underneath is evidently pretty fresh; quarter-sized red spots have appeared on the underside of the bandage, dark and wet.

"You get that comin' up here?"  Tim asks. 

Everett blinks at him.  His eyes are red and puffy.  There's something wrong with them too.  His irises seem too vivid and his pupils are shiny, not black so much as dark silver. 

"Your arm, son," says Art, not unkindly. 

Everett looks down at his arm, then back at Tim.  "Oh."  His voice is thick.  "No.  Hurt it couple'a weeks back."  He talks like his tongue is numb or all of his teeth have been knocked out. 

"Doin' what?"

Everett shrugs.  "Minin'."

"You work in the mines, son?"

Everett shrugs again, lopsided.  The fingers on his right hand are twitching. 

"Do you know why you're in Lexington?"  Tim asks. 

The boy's mouth quirks.  "Yes," he says. 

"And why is that?"

"I killed that man."

"Which man?"  Art leans forward and Tim watches the kid's face.

"Jared," Everett says.  Tim can't tell if he's lying or not.  His face is very still. 

"Why?"  Art asks. 

"He wasn't payin' me.  That was the deal.  He backed out, so I killed him." 

"Deal?  Son, you know you were harborin' a fugitive, right?"  Tim drawls.  The boy turns his swollen, glassy gaze to him. 

"Deal was, I hid him up my uncle's holler for a few weeks 'til he could get around without you fedrals comin' down on him and he'd give me twenty grand.  Went to collect and he wouldn't pay." 

"How'd you meet this man?  You don't run with the Aryan Nation, do you?"

Everett doesn't have any visible tats and he's not dressed like a neo-Nazi scumbag.  He shrugs again.  His whole arm is twitching now, fingers curling, wrist jerking, tremors going up to the elbow. 

"Met him at Johnny Crowder's bar."

"Any relation to Boyd Crowder?"  Tim hasn't met Johnny--he was on the list, but after Ava sent him to the old church he hadn't bothered with anyone else. 

"Cousin of," says Everett.  He blinks hard.  "Jared was--was lookin' for Boyd.  'Cause of the Aryan Nation thing."

"Boyd Crowder's Aryan Nation?"

"Not anymore," Everett says.  "I--some of his friends didn't like it much." 

Tim had known about Crowder's old prison ties already.  He frowns.  "You know who these friends are?"

Everett closes his mouth and shakes his head. 

"Son," says Art, pulling on his kindly old grandfather act, "you're what, sixteen, seventeen?  This kind of charge you're facing, you won't see the outside of a prison fence 'til you're my age."

Everett won't live that long.  Tim can see it.  Skinny little kid like this, bad temper, not unpretty, won't last five years.

"If you help us," Art continues, "we can get you a deal with the DA.  Get you tried as a minor.  You'll do time, but you'll get out in fifteen years, ten, enough time for you to be a young man."

"Or," Tim cuts in, "you can tell us Boyd Crowder's puttin' you up to this, and we'll let you walk out of here."

Everett is shaking now, full-body spasms that shake the chair along with him.  He blinks his puffy eyes twice.  "Boyd Crowder," he starts.  Stops.  Bites his lip hard enough to draw blood.  "Boyd Crowder ain't got nothin' to do with this.  He--he turned Jared away.  That's how I made the deal."

"Are you alright, son?"  Art sticks his head out the door, calls for somebody to run and get a doctor. 

Tim reaches across the table and presses his hand to the kid's forehead.  He's clammy, cold to the touch and damp with sweat.  His pupils are blown wide, frightened and silvery.  It almost looks like there's something moving behind them.

"Do I know you?"  Tim asks.  The back of his head prickles and for some reason, he thinks about the mine.  "'Cause you look awful fam--"

Hank Everett tears his mouth open and screams. 

Tim snatches his hand back like its been burned.  "Kid," he starts, but Everett keeps screaming, the kind of high-pitched, endless scream heard in trapped animals and grieving widows. 

"Fuck, Tim, what'd you do?"  Art demands.  He hovers, alarmed.  He doesn't want to touch the kid either. 

"I just checked his forehead!"

"Fuck," Art repeats.  Everett keeps screaming.  His eyes dart around the room and he fights against his cuffs, mouth open so wide it looks like he's coming apart at the jaw.  He begins to kick frantically. 

"Grab his legs," Tim says grimly, and wraps Everett up from behind, grabbing his wrists to keep him from pulling at the cuffs any harder.

Art picks the kid up by the legs, bears down on him, and Tim collapses backwards.  Trapped, Everett's screams turn into choking, desperate sobs. 

"Take it easy, son, it's alright," Art says.  "Deep breaths now, c'mon. You're alright."

"Make him stop," the boy sobs.  "Please, please, it hurts, make him _stop._ "

"Make who stop?  Crowder?"

At Crowder's name, Everett goes abruptly, awfully still, every muscle seizing, his eyes bulging out of his head.  Then he collapses back against Tim, limp and unresisting. 

"Crowder didn't do this," he says, and his voice is flat and wooden.  "I did.  I'm done talkin'.  And you should take me to the hospital now, 'cause I'm dyin'."

Everett doesn't pass out or seize up again, but he doesn't say anything else and his heartbeat flutters against Tim's fingers erratically. 

"Call 911," Art says curtly.  Tim does.  They get the kid loaded and packed off to the hospital with a courthouse guy for escort, and Tim pinches the bridge of his nose. Exhaustion dogs him and if this day gets any weirder, he might just quit and move down to the Keys, fish for a living, take potshots at tourists. 

Art and Tim watch the ambulance pull away together.  It's not until it rounds the corner that Art turns to Tim and says, very seriously, "Son, what the _hell_ was that?"

\---

The rest of the day doesn't go any better.  Tim's headache keeps up for most of it, trickling from the top of his head down to the base of his neck, wrapping around his temples and through his jaw.  His vision is gray around the edges. 

He should tell Art.  He must've hit his head harder than he thought down in the mines.  He doesn't think he has a concussion, but he's had two or three fistfuls of ibuprofen and they haven't even made a dent in his pain.

But then around eleven Rachel calls and tells them that they found the gun right where Everett said they would.  Two hours later, Hank Everett dies in St. Joseph's. 

"What'd he die of?"  Tim says, disbelievingly. 

The doctor on the other end of the line makes a sound like a dog.  "Looks like massive internal organ failure.  Everything just shut down.  We're running a tox screen to check for any drugs in his system, but..."

At two-thirty, Art tells Tim that Boyd Crowder's been released. 

"He put that kid up to this," Tim says.  "Art, you know he did."

"Yeah, well, we can't prove it," Art snaps.  "And Crowder's lawyer's threatening to sue, so I figure we turn him loose now and _then_ find evidence that he's a murdering asshole."

Tim nods, grimly, and spends the rest of his afternoon combing through Crowder's old files, trying to find a pattern.

He's there long after everyone else leaves, even Art. His headache doesn't let up.  He doesn't find anything, either.  Around eight his eyes are blurring so badly he can't read, so he gives up and heads down to a twenty-four hour coffee shop, thoroughly pissed.

"Marshal," a familiar voice calls, as Tim's making his way back to the office.  He closes his eyes.  Of fucking course.

"Mr. Crowder," he says, and turns.

Boyd doesn't look much different outside of prison.  He's wearing jeans and a black jacket, but other than that his hair still sticks up ad odd angles and his eyes have the same glitter in them, like a rattlesnake or a magpie. 

"You know Hank Everett died today gettin' you out of prison?"  Tim asks.

"I did not," Boyd says.  "I will be sure to pass my genuine condolences onto his poor mama.  Hank was a good boy.  Little on the slow side, but good-hearted."

"It's a little rude to insult the poor kid who just died to clear your name, isn't it?"

Crowder shrugs.  "Perhaps if Hank had possessed the sense not to mess around with things beyond his understanding, he would still be with us."

"You talkin' about harboring a fugitive?" Tim drawls. 

"No," says Crowder, "I am not.  But I didn't come here to talk about Hank Everett, Marshal."

"You come here to confess?"

"No, I didn't come here to do that either."

"Just wanted to shoot the shit, then?  Who's sweet on who now?  How'd you get here so fast, by the way?  Who picked you up out of Tramble?"

"Marshal, one day that tongue of yours is gonna get you into more trouble than your skills with a gun can get you out of."

"Is that a threat?"  Tim asks, easily.

Crowder grins.  "No, Marshal," he says.  "That is not a threat.  And the lovely Miss Ava picked me up this afternoon.  She told me you paid her a visit.  I hear you've been botherin' old Helen Givens, too.  I came right here.  I wanted to give you somethin'."

"Only thing I want from you is a signed confession," Tim says, and makes to leave, but Crowder says, "Now just hold  a minute," and presses something small into Tim's hand.

It's the lump of coal Tim brought him yesterday, and Tim's so dizzy all at once that he lurches forward, wobbles, and collapses onto Crowder.

"Woah, Marshal, easy now."  Boyd sits him down gently, all concern.  Tim can see right through him, wants to snarl, wants to put his foot on Crowder's throat, but his ears are ringing and his limbs are all rubber. 

"You alright, Marshal?"

"I'm," Tim says, and his vision clears slowly, a sense of balance crawling back.  "I'm fine."  He shrugs Crowder off and stands.

"You're bleedin'," Crowder says. 

Tim touches the top of his head.  His fingers come away red.  "It's nothin' for you to worry about," he mutters.  He looks down at the coal in his hands.  "What the hell is this for?"

"Just returnin' the favor," Boyd says pleasantly, backing off.  He holds his hands up.  "Coal is power, Marshal.  Think of it as a good luck charm."  He backs off across the street to a faded old blue pickup. 

"I don't need luck," Tim says.  "Especially none of yours."

Crowder laughs.  "Sure you do," he says, and climbs into his truck.  He guns the engine, pulls out into the street.  "See you around, son."

Tim watches him drive down to the end of the road, back up, and turn around.  The blue truck thunders past Tim, and Raylan Givens is in the passenger seat, cowboy hat perched on his head, just as filthy as he'd been down in the mines. 

He grins at Tim, widely, waves, and then he and Crowder are gone, leaving Tim standing in the road, clutching a piece of coal in his hand.

\---

That night, Tim dreams about mines.  There were no mines in Iraq but on the Afghan border there'd been a network of caves, long and dark and deep.  He'd been a stupid kid then, all gunpowder and arrogance, and he'd gotten lost in them while hunting insurgents.

His unit had found him after a day or two.   

His unit isn't with him in Harlan. 

Tim dreams about the mine, the Christmas lights, the earth underneath him rumbling and quaking.  It breathes like a living thing. 

The mine is collapsing.  Chunks of rock rain down around Tim.  Shadowy miners rush past.  One of them is a boy Tim knows instinctively is Boyd Crowder, twenty years younger and terrified out of his mind, pulling another boy along by the hand.

Tim sees the rock come down and he wants to reach out and catch it, stop it from doing its bloody work, but he can't move and it catches the second boy on the back, right at the top of his neck.  He spills forward, helmet flying off into the dark, and his hand slips out of Boyd's.  Boyd screams and makes to double back, but another miner grabs him around the middle and hauls him off, away from the dying boy on the ground.

The mine quakes again, then settles.  Tim watches the boy struggle for breath once, twice, and then he goes still, hand still outstretched.  He dies facedown in the dirt.

"Tragic, ain't it?"  Raylan Givens is standing beside Tim, looking down at the body. He's dressed exactly like the dead boy.  From this angle, Tim can see the bruise of the back of his neck, the shards of bone, dark blood. 

"Yeah," Tim says. 

"Hold still," says Raylan, and Tim does.  The boy has a knife and he drags it across Tim's palm, closes his fingers over the wound.  "Sorry, Marshal," he says.  "It'll be over soon."

The mine comes down around them, and Tim wakes up in his kitchen, knife in one hand, lump of coal held tight in the other, and blood pooling around his feet.  Raylan is sitting on his counter and Tim still can't tell what color his eyes are. 

"You're probably gonna need stitches for that," the boy says apologetically, and that's the last thing Tim remembers before he hits the ground. 


End file.
